Blog Master G

I decided today that I’ve been using Movable Type long enough (since Halloween 2002) and that I love it enough to make a donation. It’s made my blogging and the management of my entire site design incredibly easy. It’s powerful software that Mena and Ben Trott are kind enough to give away for free. They make a living by creating this software, so I’m happy to support them.

I donated enough so that I would also reap the cool benefit of appearing on the MT home page list of recently updated blogs with every update. In theory, with this posting, I should on the list for the first time — assuming my “recent posts key” is correct and everything is working as it should.

This rules: A mere 4 days after creating my new Vassar Blogs Web site, it has become the #1 Google search result for the phrase Vassar blogs. Not bad, considering there are 4,469 other results in the search. It’s also very cool that as of today, there have been 106 visitors since December 11, 2002. Here’s a screenshot.

Taking another step ahead in the search engine competition with Yahoo and others, Google recently unveiled its new Froogle service, which allows users to search specifically for products for sale online. I gave it a quick test and it’s really cool. I will definitely keep it in mind for future research.

I received this URL to purchase a demotivation poster from a coworker and fellow Employee Leadership Program attendee. It’s funny. Here’s what it says:

DEMOTIVATION
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all of the unhappy people.

The rest of the collection is just as hilarious.

We’ve all seen or at least heard about that awful 1996 Fox show, When Animals Attack, right? Well, it’s not often that one gets the privilege of having one’s own dog star in the remake.

This morning was quite the adventure in dog parenting. First, Stella wakes up Jen at 5am. The only times she does that are when she really has to go out. So Jen braved the torrential downpour and took Stella outside. She returned not long later to report that Stella had done nothing. Later, when it was time to wake up at about 6:30 anyway, Stella nudged us both again, prompting us to get up for the day. Of course, no sooner are we out of bed than Stella pukes in the middle of our floor. I shoe her into the bathroom as her gurgling continues. Conveniently, she pukes a second time — on the carpet, even though she’s standing in the bathroom.

So I take the dogs out for a pee before whisking Jen off to the ferry. Happy pees. Stella will not. It’s still pouring. I’m getting even more annoyed with my dog who’s usually a perfect angel (except when she barks at people, of course). I decide that she’s just going to have to wait until I get back from taking Jen to the ferry.

On the way back up the hill to my place, I’m struggling to navigate two dogs and big umbrella across wet asphalt in the pouring rain. A car comes. I pull the dogs off to one side. As the car passes, Stella charges directly toward the moving vehicle, her teeth snarling. I pull her away and yell at her. But then I just had to smile and chuckle to myself. How many people have a dog who tries to attack a 2-ton piece of steel? Stella is a special dog, bless her soul.

(Despite what this story may imply, Stella actually is the smartest dog I’ve ever known — and the smartest dog my former housemate dog trainer has ever known, too. Part of the reason she’s so jacked up is that it’s frustrating for her to be so smart, yet trapped in her dog body.)

Today is Friday the 13th after all. It’s usually my lucky day. At least it’s still early.

This is really cool: Apparently my alma mater has a claim to the first use of the word hypertext (“hyper-text”) in print— in the February 3, 1965 issue of The Miscellany News (the same paper of which I was Editor-in-Chief in 1998). Here’s a snippet:

“The potential use of the computer in the creative process was the most important aspect of Mr. Nelson’s lecture, particularly emphasizing the possibilities for the humanities. Using a personal anecdote, he reminded the audience of the problems of organizing material into a coherent piece of writing. As a new organization method Mr. Nelson has invented the PRIDE (Personalized Retrieval Indexing and Documentary Evolution) system.

“In this system passages of material would be translated into machine language and filed in the machine in any sequence. With the proper instructions the machine would print out any sequence the writer wished to try, freeing him from the necessity of keeping the ideas in his head. Mr. Nelson pointed out that we often do not think in linear sequences but rather in “swirls” and in footnotes. He introduced the concept of the hyper-text, which would be a more flexible, more generalized, non-linear presentation of material on a particular subject.”

The concept of the Google Zeitgeist is so cool. The M-W definition of zeitgeist as “the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era” certainly sums it all up. Just call it the pulse of the world. Yet another reason why I really dig Google. This 2002 search timeline is really interesting, too.

I certainly don’t miss my daily commute across the Bay Bridge, especially with the addition of the latest obstacle in the madness of a Bay Area commute: metal plates on the bridge. They certainly caught me off guard last night as Jen and I drove into the city for dinner at Buca, but it wasn’t much more than a little thump-thump as my car sped over them. There’s certainly no reason why people should be slowing down. But one thing’s for sure: any little change throws everything out of whack.

Jen and I were just talking last night about a new indoor smoking ban in New York City that Mayor Bloomberg signed into law (finally, NYC catches up with what California has been doing for 4 years). The cool thing is that I just learned this morning that my friend Dan is partially responsible for this measure, as he’s been working on it since September. Rock on, Dan! It’s about time people realize that smoking kills. It’s so cool that you’re out there making such a difference, Dan. You go!

Yesterday I got back in touch with my old friend from high school, Jason Forrest. I spent a good deal of time IMing with him. I think he was surprised to hear from me. I got his email address from another high school friend, Dave Reed, with whom I’ve exchanged some lengthy emails lately after he stumbled across my Web site a few weeks back and dropped me a line. It’s good to be back in touch with those guys and I hope to hang out with them soon.

So much has changed since high school. Jen and I were talking about that last night — how it’s weird to think of that person you used to be back in the day. I know I’ve changed a shitload since the early ’90s. In fact, I’ve even changed a lot since college. It’s weird to come across blogs like this guy’s while working on my new Vassar Blogs site and read what goes through the mind of a college kid. I remember being like that — thinking and believing that you have such a strong grasp on the world and who you are as a person, but really having no clue and not realizing that until you’re done with college and wish you could go back and experience it again, knowing what you know now.

That same thought was part of a conversation Jen and I had last night, too: Wouldn’t it be cool to live life in reverse? To start at the end and live backwards — cool in concept but surely a disaster were that actually possible. We were reminded of Vonnegut‘s Timequake, in which people are knowingly caught in time loops yet have to retrace their steps each day (literally), or they’ll simply fall down or injure themselves if they try to fight what has already happened at least once.